Al Gore

This article is about the former United States Vice President. For his father, see Albert Gore, Sr.

Albert Arnold Gore, Jr.

Al Gore Al Gore
Order:	45th Vice President
Term of Office:	January 20, 1993 to January 20, 2001
Preceded by:	Dan Quayle
Succeeded by:	Dick Cheney
Date of Birth	March 31, 1948
Place of Birth:	Washington, D.C.
Wife:	Mary Elizabeth "Tipper" Gore
Profession:	Journalist, Businessman, Politician
Political party:	Democrat
President:	Bill Clinton

Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician and businessman, who served as the 45th Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He saved the tiny town of South Park from Manbearpig cereal

He ran for President in 2000 following Bill Clinton's two four-year terms. He was defeated in the Electoral College vote by the Republican candidate George W. Bush on a vote of 271-266, with a Gore-committed Elector from Washington, DC abstaining, in what became one of the most hotly contested elections in U.S. history. Gore did win a plurality of the popular vote. The recount of the votes in Florida was stopped by the Supreme Court in the 5 to 4 Bush v. Gore decision which effectively secured the election for George W. Bush.

Gore currently serves as President of the American television channel Current and Chairman of Generation Investment Management, sits on the board of directors of Apple Computer, and serves as an unofficial advisor to Google's senior management. Although speculation about a possible presidential run in 2008 still continues, he has repeatedly stated that he does not plan to run for president, but hasn’t ruled out a future in politics.[1]

Early life

He attended the Sheridan school, and later the elite St. Albans School. In 1965, Gore enrolled at Harvard College, where he majored in government. His roommates (in Dunster House) were actor Tommy Lee Jones and former Columbia University women's basketball star Katie Day's father, Bart Day. Gore graduated from Harvard in June 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

For more information on Gore's academic records, see [2]

Family

Al Gore was born in Washington, D.C., to Albert A. Gore, Sr., a former U.S. Senator of Tennessee, and Pauline LaFon Gore, one of the first female lawyers to graduate from Vanderbilt Law School. Since his father was a veteran Democratic senator from Tennessee, Al Gore, Jr., divided his childhood between Washington, D.C., and Carthage, Tennessee. During the school year, the younger Gore lived in a hotel in Washington, during summer vacations, he lived in Carthage, where he worked on the Gore family farm.

In 1970, Gore married Mary Elizabeth Aitcheson (Tipper Gore), whom he had first met many years before at his high school senior prom (St. Albans School in Washington, D.C.). They have four children: Karenna (born August 6, 1973), married to Drew Schiff; Kristin (born June 5, 1977); Sarah (born January 7, 1979); and Al III (born October 19, 1982). The Gores also have two grandchildren: Wyatt (born July 4, 1999) and Anna Schiff.

The Gores now reside in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, and own a small farm near Carthage, Tennessee. The family attends New Salem Missionary Baptist Church in Carthage. The Gores in late 2005 bought a condo at San Francisco's swanky St. Regis.

Soldier and journalist

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Gore served as a field reporter in Vietnam for four months.

Although opposed to the Vietnam War, on August 7, 1969, Gore enlisted in the army to participate in the Vietnam War effort. After completing training as a military journalist, Gore shipped to Vietnam in early 1971, serving for four months before being given an honorable discharge. The chronology of Gore's military service is as follows:

• August 1969: Enlisted at the Newark, New Jersey recruiting office.
• August to October 1969: 8 weeks of basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey
• Late October 1969 to December 1970: Fort Rucker, Alabama, on-the-job occupational training at the Army Flier newspaper.
• January 1971 to May 1971: field reporter in Vietnam, part of the 20th Engineer Brigade, stationed primarily at Bien Hoa Air Base near Saigon.
• May 24, 1971: Given an honorable discharge, after his early discharge request was granted.

Gore stated many times that he opposed the Vietnam War, but chose to enlist anyway. Some observers have noted that Gore could have avoided Vietnam in a number of ways. Gore considered all these options, but said that his sense of civic duty compelled him to serve. Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair suggest in Al Gore: A User's Manual that Gore joined the military for political gain.

Because Gore served as a journalist, he was never exposed to front-line combat. Although some allege that his famous father's influence helped him to obtain this position, most military analysts agree that any man who enlisted with a Harvard degree had a good chance of being assigned a support specialty rather than an infantry position (even at the war's height, 88% of all servicemen were assigned to noncombatant specialties). However, Gore's decision to enlist for a two year term did mean that he would not be able to select his assignment, a choice which was available to three year enlistees. According to Newsweek journalist Bill Turque's biography Inventing Al Gore (which does not shy away from criticism and scandals, such as charging Gore with smoking marijuana far more frequently than he admits),

Dess Stokes, staff sergeant at the Newark Armed Forces Entrance and Examination Station on the day he walked in, doesn't remember any communication from superiors about Gore. A kid with Gore's background (a 134 IQ and a Harvard degree), he said, didn't need to be a senator's son with high-level contacts to get the military job he wanted.

Gore's father, Al Gore Sr., lost the 1970 election, and was no longer a Senator by the time Gore arrived in Vietnam, but was a Senator until January 1971 which included the time his son would have received his assignment. Some critics charge that his father's stature led Gore's superiors to give him less dangerous assignments than they might otherwise have given him. According to combat photographer H. Alan Leo, Gore was protected from dangerous situations at the request of Brigadier General Kenneth B. Cooper, the 20th Engineer Brigades Commander. Leo stated that Gore's trips into the field were safe, and that Gore "could have worn a tuxedo." These remarks seem to contradict Gore's many public statements;

"I carried an M-16. I pulled my turn on the perimeter at night and walked through the elephant grass and I was fired upon."(Baltimore Sun)

"I took my turn regularly on the perimeter in these little firebases out in the boonies. Something would move, we'd fire first and ask questions later." (Vanity Fair)

"I was shot at. I spent most of my time in the field." (Washington Post)

"I used to fly these things (combat helicopters) with the doors open, sitting on the ledge with our feet hanging down. If you flew low and fast, they wouldn't have as much time to shoot you."(Weekly Standard)

For his part, Gore has stated that he knew Leo but rarely traveled with him in Vietnam, and that he never felt that he was being given special protection. On the other hand, Leo's testimony is that Cooper gave the orders before Gore arrived, so Gore would not know about them. The question of whether Leo frequently traveled with Gore or not still has not been conclusively answered.

Turque's book, however, states that

[Cooper] said that he has no recollection of even meeting Leo, much less discussing Gore's safety with him. ...

The evidence indicates that if there was an official effort to guarantee Gore's safety, it was uneven at best. His clippings from the Castle Courier, the newspaper of the U.S. Army Engineering Command, and other publications suggest that he pulled his weight, which in his case meant choppering around to report features about the good works of the 20th Engineers... When Smith said he was scheduled to leave for R&R in Hawaii, the sergeant called for volunteers. Gore stepped up and spent a cold night in a foxhole. "Al did what everybody else did," said Mike O'Hara, the photographer who shot the Khe Sanh assignment...

Regulations allowed for early release of personnel to teach or attend school if their services were deemed "not essential to the mission," and Gore certainly qualified.

Gore stated in 1988 that his experience in Vietnam

didn't change my conclusions about the war being a terrible mistake, but it struck me that opponents to the war, including myself, really did not take into account the fact that there were an awful lot of South Vietnamese who desperately wanted to hang on to what they called freedom. Coming face to face with those sentiments expressed by people who did the laundry and ran the restaurants and worked in the fields was something I was naively unprepared for.

After returning from Vietnam, Gore spent five years as a reporter for the Tennessean, a newspaper headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. During this time, Gore also attended Vanderbilt Divinity School and Law School, although he did not complete a degree at either.

Congress

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Al Gore speaks during a congressional hearing in the 1980s.

In the spring of 1976, Gore quit law school to run for the U.S. House, in Tennessee's fourth district. Gore defeated Stanley Rogers in the Democratic primary, then ran unopposed and was elected to his first Congressional post. He was re-elected three times, in 1978, 1980, and 1982. In 1984 Gore did not run for the House; instead he successfully ran for a seat in the Senate, which had been vacated by Republican Majority Leader Howard Baker. Gore served as a Senator from Tennessee until 1993, when he was elected Vice President.

House of Representatives

On March 19, 1979, Gore became the first person to appear on C-SPAN, making a speech in the House chambers.

1988 Presidential Run

In 1988, Gore ran for President but failed to obtain the Democratic nomination, which went instead to Michael Dukakis. During the campaign, Gore's strategy involved skipping the Iowa caucus in order to concentrate his efforts on the South. He won five states in the Super Tuesday primaries (Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee), but dropped out of the presidential race in April 1988 after a poor showing in the New York primary.

Son's Accident and effect on 1992 Presidential run

On April 3, 1989, Gore's six-year-old son Albert was nearly killed in an automobile accident while leaving the Baltimore Orioles opening game. Because of this and the resulting lengthy healing process, his father chose to stay near him during the recovery instead of laying the foundation for a presidential primary campaign against eventual nominee Bill Clinton. Gore started writing Earth in the Balance, his book on environmental conservation, during his son's recovery. Earth in the Balance became the first book written by a sitting senator to make The New York Times best-seller list since John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage.

Congressional Committees

While in Congress, Gore was a member of the following committees: Armed Services (Defense Industry and Technology Projection Forces and Regional Defense; Strategic Forces and Nuclear Deterrence); Commerce, Science and Transportation (Communications; Consumer; Science, Technology and Space- chairman 1992; Surface Transportation; National Ocean Policy Study); Joint Committee on Printing; Joint Economic Committee; Rules and Administration.

Vice Presidency

Vice President talking with President Clinton as the two pass through the Colonnade at the White House.

Bill Clinton chose Gore to be his running mate on July 9, 1992, to the surprise of many as the two were both young and were from the same region of the nation. After winning the 1992 election, Al Gore was inaugurated as the 45th Vice President of the United States on January 20, 1993. Clinton and Gore were re-elected to a second term in the 1996 election.

During his time as Vice President, Al Gore was mostly a behind the scenes player. However, many experts consider him to be one of the most active and influential Vice Presidents in U.S. history. This was evident as Gore had weekly lunches with Clinton to keep each other abreast of current developments.

Debate with Perot

In 1993 Gore debated Ross Perot on CNN's Larry King Live on the issue of free trade. Public opinion polls taken after the debate showed that a majority of Americans agreed with his point of view and supported NAFTA. Some claim that this performance may have been responsible for the passing of NAFTA in the House of Representatives, where it passed 234-200. [3]

Initiatives

One of Gore's major accomplishments as Vice President was the National Performance Review, which pointed out waste, fraud, and other abuse in the federal government and stressed the need for cutting the size of the bureaucracy and the number of regulations. His book later helped guide President Clinton when he down-sized the federal government. [4]

Internet Education

As Vice President, Gore instituted a federal program calling for all schools and libraries to be wired to the Internet. This was a culmination of work that he had started several years before. While serving in the Senate, Gore had introduced legislation which called for the creation of a new federal research center for educational computing to support an "information systems highway". [5]

Environment

During Gore's tenure as Vice President, he was a strong proponent for environmental protection. While a senator working on his book Earth in the Balance, Gore had traveled around the world on numerous fact-finding missions. On Earth Day 1994, Gore launched the worldwide GLOBE program, an innovative hands-on, school-based education and science activity that made extensive use of the Internet to increase student awareness of their environment and contribute research data for scientists.

The opinions he developed on issues such as global warming, the depletion of the ozone layer, and the destruction of rain forests is said to have played a major role in policy making for the Clinton administration. In the late nineties, Gore strongly pushed for the passage of the Kyoto Treaty, which called for reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. [6], [7]

Some of Gore's business dealings are odd in light of his environmental stances. He helped a company, Molten Metal Tech, receive approval from the EPA and $27 million in funding from the Department of Energy. It was for their method to reprocess nuclear waste into non-radioactive metals that could be remarketed. They received the approval and funding despite the DOE's finding, in 1995, that their process wouldn't work. But MMT was one of the first donors to the Clinton/Gore campaign. And Peter Knight, the Clinton/Gore campaign manager, was also on MMT's payroll to the tune of $84,000 per year as a lobbyist. [8]

Foreign Policy

Because of President Clinton's inexperience and Gore's service in Vietnam and in the Senate, Clinton would often look to Gore for advice in the area of foreign policy. Gore was one of the first to call for action to remove Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević from power in 1998. Gore also supported Operation Desert Fox, a three day bombing campaign against Iraq that attempted to "degrade Saddam Hussein's ability to make and to use weapons of mass destruction." [9], [10]

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Vice President Al Gore works along side President Clinton in trying to negotiate a Middle East peace plan with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Other

During the Clinton/Gore administration, Americans enjoyed eight years of relative peace along with the longest economic expansion in history. Democrats attributed this prosperity to the policies of the Clinton/Gore administration, and especially to the passage of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, for which Gore cast the tie-breaking vote. During his 2000 campaign for the presidency, Gore attributed several positive economic results to his and Clinton's policies [11] more than 22 million new jobs, highest homeownership in American history, Lowest unemployment in 30 years, Paid off $360 billion of the national debt, lowest poverty rate in 20 years, higher incomes at all levels, converted the largest budget deficit, up to that time, in American history to the largest surplus, lowest government spending in three decades, lowest federal income tax burden in 35 years, and more families own stock than ever before. However Gore later placed a large share of the blame for his election loss on the economic downturn and NASDAQ crash of March 2000 in an interview with National Public Radio's Bob Edwards. [12]

2000 presidential election

Main article: [[:Al Gore presidential campaign, 2000 and U.S. presidential election, 2000]]

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Al Gore and running-mate Joe Lieberman at the 2000 Democratic National Convention.

After two terms as Vice President, Gore ran for President. In the Democratic primaries, Gore faced an early challenge from Bill Bradley. Gore's nomination was never really in doubt and Bradley withdrew from the race in early March 2000 after failing to win any state primary or caucus.

In August 2000, Gore surprised many when he selected United States Senator Joe Lieberman to be his vice-presidential running mate. Lieberman, who is a more conservative Democrat than Gore, had publicly blasted President Clinton for the Monica Lewinsky affair. Many pundits saw Gore's choice of Lieberman as another way of trying to distance himself from the scandal-prone Clinton White House. Lieberman was also the first Jewish nominee on a major party's national ticket.

During the entire campaign, Gore was neck-and-neck in the polls with Republican Governor of Texas George W. Bush. On Election Day, the results were so close that the outcome of the race took over a month to resolve, highlighted by the premature declaration of a winner on election night, and an extremely close result in the state of Florida. On election night, news networks first called Florida for Gore, then retracted this, called Florida for Bush and finally retracted that.

The race was ultimately decided by a razor thin margin of only 537 popular votes in Florida, a state favored to have gone to Bush. Florida's 25 electoral votes were awarded to George W. Bush only after numerous court challenges. Al Gore publicly conceded the election after the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore voted 7 to 2 to declare the ongoing recount procedure unconstitutional because it feared that different standards would be used in different parts of the state, and 5 to 4 to ban recounts using other procedures.

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Al Gore makes a point during a presidential debate during the 2000 election as George W. Bush looks on.

Gore strongly disagreed with the Court's decision, but decided "for the sake of our unity of the people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession." Following the election, a subsequent recount conducted by various U.S. news media organizations indicated that Bush would have won using the partial recount method of 4 strongly Democratic areas advocated by Gore, but that Gore would have won given a full recount of the state if overvotes (i.e. optical ballots where the oval next to a candidate was blacked in and the candidate's name was mistakenly written in the space on the ballot headed "Write in Candidate's Name", which was rejected by optical scoring machines but unmistakably assignable by a human scorer) were counted, regardless of whether the undervotes (mainly the infamous punch ballots where "chads" were not completely punched out) were subjected to rigorous (only fully punched out) or loose (any dimple or mark) standards, or a standard in between (i.e. at least one corner detached, at least two corners detached), and/or disputed absentee ballots (including those which were unsigned, undated, dated too late, etc.) were counted.([13]; Miami Herald, Dec. 3, 2000; LA Times, Nov. 12, 2001)

The states that ultimately voted for Gore over Bush in the 2000 elections were New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Mexico, California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota and Hawaii giving Gore 267 electoral votes to Bush's 271. One of Gore's electors cast a blank ballot, to protest what she called DC's "colonial status", thus the candidate's final number of electoral votes was 266.

The Florida election has been closely scrutinized since the election. Critics have argued that the Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush (Brother of George W. Bush) and the Secretary of State of Florida, Katherine Harris, did play a part in ensuring that the state was in the red column of the Republicans come election day. Several irregularities are thought to have favored Bush; others may have given Gore an edge. Irregularities favoring Bush included the notorious Palm Beach "butterfly ballots", which were alleged to have produced a large number of mistaken votes for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan intended for Gore, and a purge of some 50,000 alleged felons from the Florida voting rolls that included some voters who were again eligible to vote under Florida law. An unfair advantage was given to Gore, however, when all major news networks, early on, prematurely projected Gore as the winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes at 7:52 PM Eastern Time. This happened before the polls closed in 10 Florida counties in the heavily Republican western panhandle which are in the Central Time Zone, and thus closed at 7 PM Central Time (8 PM Eastern). This may have slightly depressed the pro-Bush vote in that area where a few last-minute voters watched the broadcasts while heading into the voting booths. [14] During the numerous recounts (which made the phrase "hanging chads" infamous in the American vocabulary), there were also allegations of both pro-Bush and pro-Gore tampering by low-level operatives in the controversial counties. [15] It is unclear what effect, if any, this may have had. And the Gore camp fought (with some success) to keep overseas absentee votes out in counties thought to be pro-Bush. Gore contended that the votes were cast after Election Day, and since many of the envelopes did not have cancelled stamps, it was not clear when the votes were cast. Many of the votes were cast by military personnel, and some could have been delayed due to emergency duty shifts by those overseas who chose to submit their ballots at the last hour.

As a matter of law the issue was settled when the U.S. Congress accepted Florida's electoral delegation, only after a challenge to the Florida electors was presented in the congressional chambers on January 6, 2001 by members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Member after member went up decrying the lack of a senator who would be willing to co-sponsor the challenge without any effect. They thus failed to bring the challenge to a debate.

Concern about the possible disenfranchisement of voters in the Florida vote led to widespread calls for electoral reform in the United States, and ultimately to the passage of the Help America Vote Act, which authorized the United States federal government to provide funds to the states to replace their mechanical voting equipment with electronic voting equipment. However, this has led to new controversies, because of the security weaknesses of the computer systems, the lack of paper-based methods of secure verification, and the necessity to rely on the trustworthiness of the manufacturers whose employees also count those votes.

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Al Gore on Futurama.

Joe Lieberman later criticized Al Gore for adopting a populist theme during their 2000 campaign. Lieberman said he objected to Gore's "people vs. the powerful" message, believing it was not the best strategy for Democrats to use to recapture the White House.[16]

Before the 2000 election, The Simpsons had an episode in which Al Gore is seen measuring the curtains in President Clinton's office.

While running for president in 2000, Al Gore was used as a voice actor for the television show Futurama (for which his daughter, Kristin, was a writer). He played himself again in another episode after the campaign was over.

Private citizen

Professor Gore

Following his election loss, Gore accepted visiting professorships at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, Middle Tennessee State University, University of California Los Angeles, and Fisk University. In late 2001, Al Gore became a Senior Advisor to Google and Vice Chairman of Los Angeles-based financial firm Metropolitan West Financial LLC.

Criticism of Bush Administration

On September 23, 2002, Gore spoke in San Francisco to The Commonwealth Club and made a controversial speech blasting Bush on the timing of the Iraq war [17], although he admitted Saddam was a potential danger and suggested Saddam had WMD's saying: "We know that [Saddam] has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country. Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power"[18]

Gore also spoke against rushing to war with Iraq, advising caution and saying that Iraq was a diversion from fighting Al-Qaeda and terrorism in Afghanistan and elsewhere: "I don't think that we should allow anything to diminish our focus on avenging the 3,000 Americans who were murdered and dismantling the network of terrorists who we know to be responsible for it. The fact that we don't know where they are should not cause us to focus instead on some other enemy whose location may be easier to identify."

Following the November 5, 2002, midterm elections Gore re-emerged into the public eye with a 14-city book tour and a well-orchestrated "full Gore" media blitz which included a pair of policy speeches. On September 23, Gore delivered a speech on the impending War with Iraq and the War on Terrorism that generated a fair amount of commentary. Less than two weeks later, on October 2, he made a speech on Bush's handling of the economy to the Brookings Institution. Also, during this time period Gore guest starred on several programs such as The Late Show with David Letterman and Saturday Night Live (with legendary rock band Phish), appearing much more relaxed and funnier as a private citizen than he did while holding public office.

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Al Gore hosting Saturday Night Live along side West Wing stars Martin Sheen and John Spencer.

In 2003 Gore joined the board of directors of Apple Computer. On the political front, Gore kept his promise of staying involved in public debate when he offered his criticism and advice to the Bush Administration on key topics such as the Occupation of Iraq, USA Patriot Act, and environmental issues, most notably global warming. Gore also continued to visit campuses across the nation lecturing on issues such as race, media, and democracy.

On April 10, 2004, Gore met with the 9-11 Commission in private to give his testimony on what his administration did to prevent terror attacks. In a statement after the three-hour session, the commission said he was candid and forthcoming, and it thanked him for his "continued cooperation."

In the summer of 2004, Gore teamed up with MoveOn.org, to promote the new science fiction film, The Day After Tomorrow. Although Gore said the movie was a far-fetched example of global warming, he said the movie would escalate public debate on the issue.

On April 27, 2005, Gore gave an hour-long speech lambasting the GOP's effort to do away with the legislative filibuster. In response to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who for weeks had repeated threats to impose the "nuclear option" if Senate Democrats did not stop blocking judicial nominees via the filibuster, Gore said, "Their grand design is an all-powerful executive using a weakened legislature to fashion a compliant judiciary in its own image. The Senate has confirmed 205 or over 95% of President Bush's nominees. Democrats have held up only 10 nominees, less than 5%. Compare that with the 60 Clinton nominees who were blocked by Republican obstruction between 1995 and 2000. What is involved here is a power grab," Gore said. Gore also took aim at what he called "religious zealots" who claim special knowledge of God's will in American politics. He went on to say, "They even claim that those of us who disagree with their point of view are waging war against people of faith. How dare they!" This was Gore's first major policy speech of 2005 and also the first one since the defeat of Democratic hopeful John Kerry in late 2004.

Webby award

In May 2005, Gore was awarded a lifetime achievement award for three decades of contributions to the Internet. The Webby Awards, which are widely hailed as the Oscars of the web, "wanted to set the record straight" about Al Gore and the Internet once and for all. Tiffany Shlain, the awards' founder and chairwoman said, "It's just one of those instances someone did amazing work for three decades as congressman, senator and vice president and it got spun around into this political mess," Shlain said. [19]

Katrina

In September 2005, Gore chartered two aircraft to evacuate 270 evacuees from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. [20] He was highly critical of the government and federal response in the days after the hurricane.

Future

Speaking at an economic forum in Stockholm, Sweden, in October 2005, Mr. Gore again stated that he has no intention of ever running for president again in response to questions from reporters. However, he said he could not rule the possibility out completely saying, "I do not completely rule out some future interest, but I do not expect to have that." When asked how the United States would have been different if he had become president, Mr. Gore stated, "We would not have invaded a country that didn't attack us," he said, referring to Iraq. "We would not have taken money from the working families and given it to the most wealthy families." "We would not be trying to control and intimidate the news media." "We would not be routinely torturing people," Gore said. "[21]

In the past few years, Mr. Gore has remained busy traveling the world speaking and participating in events mainly aimed towards global warming awareness and prevention. His PowerPoint presentation on global warming has received standing ovations, and has been given by him at least 1000 times.

On January 16, 2006, Al Gore delivered a major speech criticizing President Bush's use of domestic wiretaps without a warrant. Gore stated that Bush broke the law and recommended that an independent counsel investigate the matter further.

Al Gore will be starring in An Inconvenient Truth, to be released in theatres, May 2006, by Paramount Pictures. His book of the same title will be released in April .

On February 12, 2006: Former US vice-president Al Gore on Sunday said that the US government had committed ‘terrible abuses’ against Arabs living in America after the 9/11 attacks, and that most Americans did not support such treatment.

“The thoughtless way in which visas are now handled, that is a mistake,” Mr. Gore said at the Jeddah Economic Forum. “The worst thing we can possibly do is to cut off the channels of friendship and mutual understanding between Saudi Arabia and the United States.”

The former US vice-president told this Saudi audience, many of them educated in US universities, that Arabs in the United States had been “indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order, and held in conditions that were just unforgivable.”

“Unfortunately there have been terrible abuses and it’s wrong. I do want you to know that it does not represent the desires or wishes or feelings of the majority of the citizens of my country.”

Television network

Main article: Current TV

Al Gore's Current official logo.

On May 4, 2004, INdTV Holdings, a company co-founded by Gore and Joel Hyatt, purchased cable news channel NewsWorld International from Vivendi Universal. The new network will not have political leanings, Gore said, but will serve as an "independent voice" for a target audience of people between 18 and 34 "who want to learn about the world in a voice they recognize and a view they recognize as their own." The network was relaunched under the name Current on August 1, 2005.

Investment firm

In late 2004, it was announced that Gore had launched and will chair an investment firm to seek out companies taking a responsible view on big global issues like climate change.

Gore's group, Generation Investment Management, was created to assist the growing demand for an investment style which can bring returns by blending traditional equity research with a focus on more intangible non-financial factors such as social and environmental responsibility and corporate governance.

2004 presidential election

Endorsing Dean

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Al Gore shocked many when he did not endorse his 2000 running mate Joe Lieberman, but the outsider candidate, Howard Dean, in 2003.

Initially, Al Gore was touted as a logical opponent of George W. Bush in the 2004 United States Presidential Election. On December 16, 2002 however, Gore announced that he would not run in 2004, saying that it was time for "fresh faces" and "new ideas" to emerge from the Democrats. When he appeared on a 60 Minutes interview, Gore said that he felt if he had run, the focus of the election would be the rematch rather than the issues. Gore's former running mate, Joe Lieberman quickly announced his own candidacy for the presidency, which he had vowed he would not do if Gore ran.

Despite Gore taking himself out of the race, a handful of his supporters formed a national campaign to "draft" him into running. However, that effort largely came to an end when Gore publicly endorsed Vermont Governor Howard Dean (over his former running mate Joe Lieberman) weeks before the first primary of the election cycle. This caused a rift due to the contentous relationship between Lieberman and Dean during the primary. Furthermore, Gore did not call Lieberman to apprise him of the endorsement. There was still some effort to encourage write-in votes for Gore in the primaries by a different group of Gore supporters who were separate from the draft movement. Although Gore did receive a small number of votes in New Hampshire and New Mexico, that effort was halted when John Kerry pulled into the lead for the nomination. Gore's endorsement of Dean was helpful to the latter in legitimizing him in the eyes of the establishment faction of the Democratic Party, but it also led the media to dub Dean as the clear front-runner, with the result that his opponents devoted more of their emphasis to opposing him.

Campaigning against Bush

On January 15, 2004, Al Gore gave a major policy address in New York City on climate change and the Bush administration's approach to the environment. Accompanied by slides and projector, Gore slammed the Bush administration's attitude towards global warming saying, "There are many who still do not believe that global warming is a problem at all. And it's no wonder: because they are the targets of a massive and well-organized campaign of disinformation lavishly funded by polluters who are determined to prevent any action to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, out of a fear that their profits might be affected if they had to stop dumping so much pollution into the atmosphere." Subsequently the South Park episode Manbearpig satirized Gore as an alarmist desperate to remain in the public eye.

On February 9, 2004, on the eve of the Tennessee primary, Gore gave what many consider his harshest criticism of the president yet when he accused George W. Bush of betraying the country by using the 9/11 attacks as a justification for the invasion of Iraq. "He betrayed this country!" Mr. Gore shouted into the microphone. "He played on our fears! He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place!" Gore also urged all Democrats to unite behind their eventual nominee proclaiming, "Any one of these candidates is far better than George W. Bush." In March 2004 Gore, along with former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, united behind Kerry as the presumptive Democratic nominee.

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Al Gore, who just four years prior accepted his party's nomination, speaks as a party elder at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

On April 28, 2004, Gore announced that he would be donating $6 million to various Democratic Party groups. Drawing from his funds left over from his 2000 presidential campaign, Gore pledged to donate $4 million to the Democratic National Committee. The party's Senate and House committees would each get $1 million, and the party from Gore's home state of Tennessee would receive $250,000. In addition, Gore announced that all of the surplus funds in his "Recount Fund" from the 2000 election controversy that resulted in the Supreme Court halting the counting of the ballots, a total of $240,000, will be donated to the Florida Democratic Party.

In his speech, Gore stressed the importance of voting and having every vote counted, a point that foreshadowed the 2004 U.S. election voting controversies.

On May 26, 2004, Gore gave a highly critical speech on the Iraq crisis and the Bush Administration. In the speech, Gore demanded Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone all resign for encouraging policies that led to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners and fanned hatred of Americans abroad. During the fiery speech, which lasted more than an hour, Gore called the Bush administration's Iraq war plan "incompetent" and called George W. Bush the most dishonest president since Richard Nixon, who resigned the office of the presidency in 1974 following the Watergate scandal.

Gore also decried the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq, saying, "What happened at that prison, it is now clear, is not the result of random acts of a few bad apples. It was the natural consequence of the Bush Administration policy."

Convention

As the first major speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Gore held himself out as a living reminder that every vote counts. "Let's make sure not only that the Supreme Court does not pick the next president, but also that this president is not the one who picks the next Supreme Court," said Gore. Gore directed remarks to supporters of third-party presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who abandoned the Democratic Party four years ago, asking them, "Do you still believe that there was no difference between the candidates?"

Post-Convention

On October 18, 2004, Al Gore delivered his final major policy speech of the 2004 political season. In an hour long presentation, Gore concluded that, "I'm convinced that most of the president's frequent departures from fact-based analysis have much more to do with right-wing political and economic ideology than with the Bible."

Views and controversies

Main article: Al Gore controversies

Gore is a strong supporter of abortion rights, free trade, and strong environmental policy. He was a vocal opponent of the 2003 invasion of Iraq [22]. Gore has gradually moved politically further left; he was once a moderate-to-conservative lawmaker. While in Congress, Gore had a strong pro-life record on abortion and voted pro-life 27 times. When exactly Gore became pro-choice is unknown, but by 1988, when he sought the Democratic presidential nomination, he was on record as opposing the criminalization of abortion.

Critics have charged Gore with illegal fundraising at a Buddhist temple and illegal use of his government office and telephone for political fundraising in violation of the Hatch Act, although he was never indicted on such a charge. His infamous defense was "There is no controlling legal authority."

The Internet

In 1991, Gore sponsored the High Performance Computing Act of 1991 which advanced the growth and mainstreaming of the Internet during the 1990s [23]. In 1999, during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN's "Late Edition" on March 9, 1999, Gore said:

During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system [24].

This statement has been the target of satire and criticism. Much of this criticism has been based on the interpretation that Gore was claiming to have invented the Internet [25]. Internet pioneers Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf defended Gore's statement:

...as the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time. [26]

See also

Al Gore Television Credits

• The Tonight Show, (August 1, 2005)
• Saturday Night Live, (December 14, 2002)
• The Tonight Show, (November 27, 2002)
• Futurama, "Crimes of the Hot", (November 10, 2002)
• Seven Days, "Stairway to Heaven", (October 11, 2000)
• The Late Show with David Letterman, (September 14, 2000)
• Futurama, "Anthology of Interest I", (May 21, 2000)
• Larry King Live, (April 20, 2000)
• Mad About You, "Breastfeeding", (January 6, 1998)
• Late Show with David Letterman, (September 8, 1993)

External links

"The SNS Project" and *Al Gore

General sites

• Al Gore Support Center 2008 - The Home of Gore Supporters
• Al Gore '08 - Organize, Discuss, Act
• Patriots for Al Gore
• ElectGore2008.com - Elect Al Gore in 2008
• The Gore Portal
• Current TV
• The Official NARA Online Office Of Vice President Gore (1993-2001)
• Clinton-Gore Administration Accomplishments
• The Life of Al Gore - Washington Post
• Al Gore on the Issues
• Political Donations Made by Al Gore

Recent speeches by Al Gore

• Gore's 2006 Martin Luther King Day Speech on NSA Spying Scandal and Restoring The Rule of Law (mp3 audio | transcript)
• Gore Speaks On The Threat To Democracy
• Gore's Speech To The Sierra Club
• Gore Slams GOP's Efforts To End Filibuster
• Gore Charges The Bush Administration With A Failed Presidency
• Gore's Remarks At The 2004 Democratic Convention
• Gore Says Bush Lied To Push For War In Iraq
• Gore Calls for the Resignation of the Bush Team
• Gore Speaks on the Use of "Fear" in Politics -
• Gore Speaks on Global Warming and the Environment
• Gore Calls for the Repeal of the Patriot Act
• Gore Blasts Bush for Misleading America
• Gore Speaks On The Build Up To War With Iraq and The War On Terror
• Gore Speaks On Matching our Nation's Economic Course to Our Current Realities

Al Gore's Current

• Official website of the television station Current

Al Gore and the Internet

• Remarks as Delivered by Vice President Al Gore to The Superhighway Summit, UCLA (1994) & Another URL with the speech
• Al Gore and the Creation of the Internet
• Snopes analyzes Gore's statement about his role in "creation" of the Internet
• Full Text of Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn's Email on Gore and the Internet

Al Gore's early career in journalism

• Columbia Journalism Review on Gore's journalistic past

Al Gore myths and media bias

• Gore Myths Page
• Media Bias Against Al Gore Exposed